I have recently learned the benefits and importance of sending a text-only follow up email message. The purpose is to capture the attention of people who received the original HTML email but did not open it. By doing so, you can extend the reach of your email marketing campaign to people who only set their inboxes to read text, those who may be visually impaired, and mobile users.

Having tested this strategy thoroughly for a client, I found the resulting increase in engagement and open rates to be quite impressive. The process is quite simple in terms of setup and segmentation - only two simple steps:

1) The first thing you want to do is send your standard HTML email campaign to your subscriber base.

2) Next, follow up 24 to 48 hours later with a text-only email sent to subscribers who received the original HTML message, but who did not open it. The content of the email can be identical to the HTML message, without the images of course.

To reiterate, you are targeting a number of people who may only have text capabilities, such as mobile users and those who have set their inboxes to read only text-based emails. This segmentation strategy can work to your advantage and you will quickly see positive results. And it can be implemented as often as you like, depending on your email frequency.

These two simple steps can help you achieve greater success with your email marketing initiatives. For more details on how to succeed with follow up email campaigns, read:  

• Use Follow-up Email to Increase Your ROI (Part 1)
  – Part 2 coming next week!  

• More Follow Up Email How-To and Stats
  

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About the Author

Vip Patel is an account manager at Lyris. He is responsible for helping clients with their email campaigns, offering today's best practices, guidelines and measures to help them succeed in email marketing.

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• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.

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